Feb 25, 2009

Police block Sharif supporters at Punjab assembly

Police surrounded the Punjab assembly in Lahore on Thursday to stop supporters of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif meeting a day after the court ruling against him and Shahbaz Sharif.PML-N members said they wanted to hold a debate in the provincial assembly but police had sealed off the building.‘When the people’s representatives are barred from entering assemblies then what kind of democracy or justice can you expect,’ Ali Asghar Manda, a member of the party, said outside the assembly.‘We will continue our protest inside and outside the assembly until the restoration of true democracy, the removal of governor’s rule and the withdrawal of the decisions against the Sharif brothers,’ he said.‘I want to tell the nation that it should stand up to this lawlessness, to this judgement, to this unconstitutional judgement, to this villainous act by the president of this country, Zardari,’ he told a news conference in Lahore on Wednesday.